Joe Biden to join UAW picket line in solidarity with striking autoworkers

President to visit Detroit-area plant day before Donald Trump addresses workers in key 2024 battleground state

Joe Biden will make a rare presidential appearance on a picket line in Michigan on Tuesday to show solidarity with striking members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union locked in an escalating dispute with America’s three biggest carmakers.

In a high-stakes effort to steal a march on Donald Trump, Biden will offer his backing to strikers at a plant in the Detroit area as part of an all-out bid to retain the support of union members in Michigan, seen as a key presidential election battleground state.

Continue reading...

Bob Menendez says money found in police search was for personal use – live

Democratic senator says he has withdrawn cash over 30 years and expects to be exonerated of corruption charges

We’re awaiting a press conference from Robert Menendez scheduled for 11.30am, where the Democratic senator will reportedly vow not to leave office and instead run for re-election next year, despite being indicted last week for using his position to assist the government of Egypt.

We’ll follow the press conference live, and let you know what he says.

Continue reading...

Bob Menendez refuses to quit and says $480,000 in cash was for personal use

New Jersey senator strikes defiant tone to reporters and accuses some of ‘rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat’

Insisting he would not resign after being indicted on corruption charges, the embattled New Jersey Democratic senator Bob Menendez told reporters that $480,000 in cash found in a safe, clothing and closets at his home was kept there for emergency personal use.

“For 30 years,” Menendez said, “I have withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash from my personal savings accounts, which I have kept for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba.”

Continue reading...

‘Full fascist’ Trump condemned after ‘treason’ rant against NBC and MSNBC

Former president vows to investigate TV networks for ‘country-threatening treason’ should he win US election next year

Donald Trump said Comcast, the owner of NBC and MSNBC, “should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason’” and promised to do so should he be re-elected president next year.

In response, one progressive group said the former US president and current overwhelming frontrunner in the Republican 2024 presidential nomination race had “gone full fascist”.

Continue reading...

Poll showing Trump up 10 points over Biden for 2024 election criticized

A Washington Post-ABC poll showed results that diverge from most other surveys, and even the pollers made a caveat

A new Washington Post-ABC poll showing Joe Biden trailing his presidential predecessor Donald Trump by 10 percentage points was excoriated by leading political pollster Larry Sabato.

Noting that the pollsters themselves cautioned that their survey was an outlier, Sabato – the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia – called the decision to release it “ridiculous”.

Continue reading...

Pete Buttigieg condemns Trump’s reported remarks about wounded veteran

Ex-president reportedly told Gen Mark Milley in 2019 that severely wounded soldier should be banned from public appearances

Pete Buttigieg, the US transport secretary and a military veteran, has criticized Donald Trump after a report that he sought to bar a severely wounded veteran from public appearances during his presidency.

In an interview with the Atlantic, Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said Trump had been irritated after Luis Avila – who lost a leg and suffered brain damage after an IED attack in Afghanistan – sang at Milley’s 2019 welcome ceremony.

Continue reading...

Minnesota’s cannabis head resigns after reports she sold illegal weed products

Erin Dupree’s Loonacy Cannabis Co reportedly sold products stronger than recently enacted marijuana legalization allowed

The recently appointed director of Minnesota’s new marijuana regulatory agency, Erin Dupree, has resigned amid reports that she sold illegal cannabis products in the state.

Dupree ran a business that sold products exceeding state limits on THC potency, owed money to former associates and accumulated tens of thousands of dollars in tax liens, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

Continue reading...

US progressive groups facing ‘five-alarm fire’ ahead of 2024 as donations down

Fundraising down 48% as Movement Voter Project’s director says ‘sense of urgency’ has ‘dissipated in people’s minds’

Progressive political fundraising in America is facing a crisis, according to a leading Democratic grassroots donor organization, which warned this month that donations to progressive groups are “way down in 2023 across the board”.

According to the Movement Voter Project, progressives have “a five-alarm fire going into 2024”. The organization’s director, Bill Wimsatt, said he was “pressing the panic button” because donor-inaction is creating a movement-wide crisis.

Continue reading...

Cassidy Hutchinson left DC amid ‘security concerns’ after January 6 hearings

Former White House aide to Donald Trump tells CBS News Sunday Morning she ‘could not go back to my apartment’

The former Donald Trump White House aide who became a pivotal January 6 witness remembers wanting to make a last-minute run for it before delivering her crucial testimony about the US Capitol attack that the defeated president’s supporters staged.

But Cassidy Hutchinson kept her nerve, and the cost of breaking ranks with Trump and his fanatical supporters was steep.

Continue reading...

New Jersey senator Menendez rejects calls from fellow Democrats to resign

Robert Menendez urged to step down after being charged with accepting bribes, including gold bars, in exchange for favors

Several Democrats including his own state governor are calling on their fellow party member Robert Menendez to resign after federal authorities charged the New Jersey US senator and his wife with accepting bribes. However, the defiant senator has rejected those claims and is refusing to step down.

Authorities on Friday revealed charges alleging that Robert and Nadine Menendez illegally accepted gold bars, cash, a luxurious Mercedes-Benz car and other gifts in exchange for favors benefiting three businessmen as well as influencing the Egyptian government.

Continue reading...

Tropical Storm Ophelia threatens wind, rain and storm surge for US mid-Atlantic

North Carolina and Virginia governors declare states of emergency ahead of expected landfall on Saturday morning

Tropical Storm Ophelia formed off the mid-Atlantic coast and was expected to bring heavy rain, storm surge and windy conditions over the weekend, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Friday.

Ophelia had maximum sustained winds of 60mph (95km/h), according to a 2pm advisory from the Miami-based center. The storm was centered 150 miles (240km) south-east of Cape Fear, North Carolina, and was forecast to make landfall on Saturday morning.

Continue reading...

Biden and Harris unveil first federal gun violence prevention office, citing 100 people shot and killed daily – live

US president urges action as Kamala Harris says one in five Americans have lost family member to gun violence

Faced with the House stalemate over a government stopgap funding bill, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday set up a path for the Senate to move first on a bill to fund the government beyond 30 September.

Senate aides told the Hill the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) bill could serve as a legislative vehicle to pass a continuing resolution to fund the federal government for a few weeks – but that it will likely not include money for the war in Ukraine or disaster relief.

This is painful. It gives me a headache. This is a very difficult series of missteps by our conference. If you can’t do [the defense bill], what can you do?

At this point, it seems like there are some people playing policy warfare, and I think we need to move our country forward.

For my colleagues, they have to come to a realization: If they are unable or unwilling to govern, others will. And in a divided government where you have Democrats controlling the Senate, a Democrat controlling the White House, there needs to be a realization that you’re not going to get everything you want.

Continue reading...

White House planning for government shutdown after chaos on Capitol Hill

House leaves for weekend without solution to shutdown threat in sight amid hard-right Republican opposition to McCarthy plans

The Republican-led US House of Representatives has all but disappeared for the long weekend after abruptly wrapping up its work on Thursday when the embattled speaker, Kevin McCarthy, failed to advance a stopgap government spending bill, as members continued to clash with just days left to avert a federal shutdown.

The White House on Friday planned to begin telling federal agencies to prepare for a shutdown, AP reported, citing a government official.

Continue reading...

McCarthy says hard-right Republicans ‘want to burn whole place down’

Conference fails to approve procedural motion to take up defense spending bill as government shutdown looms

The House Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was dealt his second humiliating defeat of the week on Thursday, when his conference again failed to approve a procedural motion as members continued to clash over government spending levels with just days left to avert a federal shutdown.

With no clear path forward in Republicans’ negotiations, the House concluded its work on Thursday without any stated plan to reconvene on Friday.

Continue reading...

White House says Republicans turned Garland hearing into ‘circus’ – live

Attorney general is grilled by Trump-aligned lawmakers on House judiciary committee

The judiciary committee’s highest-ranking Democrat Jerry Nadler then got a turn to question Merrick Garland, and asked him what would happen if the FBI was defunded.

“Defund the FBI” has become a rallying cry for extreme rightwing Republicans such as representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz as well as the presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who claim the law enforcement agency has become politicized.

Continue reading...

Ex-Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson claims Rudy Giuliani groped her on January 6

Exclusive: in a new book, Hutchinson describes incident in which the former New York mayor put his hand ‘under my blazer, then my skirt’

Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump aide turned crucial January 6 witness, says in a new book she was groped by Rudy Giuliani, who was “like a wolf closing in on its prey”, on the day of the attack on the Capitol.

Describing meeting with Giuliani backstage at Donald Trump’s speech near the White House before his supporters marched on Congress in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, Hutchinson says the former New York mayor turned Trump lawyer put his hand “under my blazer, then my skirt”.

Continue reading...

‘Not accurate’: Republican wrong to say Montana has more bears than people

Expert says Senate candidate Tim Sheehy’s estimate wildly off as there are 1.12 million people in state and ‘nowhere close to that number of bear’

In the compendium of false claims, an offering from Tim Sheehy, a Montana 2024 Republican Senate candidate, is readily disprovable.

In an interview with Breitbart, the former Navy Seal observed that the state, which he referred to as “flyover country”, did not typically have much in political power – a situation that could change with the balance of power in the US Senate races next year.

Continue reading...

Rupert Murdoch often wishes Donald Trump dead, Michael Wolff book says

Media mogul has become ‘a frothing-at-the-mouth’ Trump critic, Fire and Fury author writes in new book, The Fall

Rupert Murdoch loathes Donald Trump so much that the billionaire has not just soured on him as a presidential candidate but often wishes for his death, the author Michael Wolff writes in his eagerly awaited new book on the media mogul, The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty.

According to Wolff, Murdoch, 92, has become “a frothing-at-the-mouth” enemy of the 77-year-old former US president, often voicing thoughts including “This would all be solved if … ” and “How could he still be alive, how could he?”

Continue reading...

Zelenskiy accuses Russia of genocide and urges world leaders to attend peace summit

Ukrainian president says all leaders ‘who do not tolerate any aggression’ would be invited to a peace summit

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has told the UN general assembly that Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine and urged world leaders to attend a peace summit to help stop the invasion and future wars of aggression.

Appearing in the assembly chamber in New York for the first time in person, the Ukrainian president used the opportunity to try to galvanise support for his country’s plight among many countries, especially in the global south, many of whom have sought to sit on the fence in the face of the full-scale Russian invasion.

Continue reading...

House Republicans cancel vote on short-term funding measure amid infighting – live

Kevin McCarthy fights rightwing of Republican party over spending deal; House oversight committee aims for first hearing next Thursday, report says

The House will not vote today on a measure to keep the government open past 30 September, amid a split between the chamber’s Republican leadership and a handful of far-right lawmakers that will cause a government shutdown if it is not resolved in 12 days, Punchbowl News reports:

Lawmakers had been scheduled to today vote to approve the rules of debate for the short-term funding measure, but it was unclear if it would have passed.

Continue reading...